The end is nigh

[wiak]

Browsers are insecure by their very nature. The totally secure browser simply doesn't exist; it's an oxymoron in real terms, 'cos the only 100% secure browser is one that NEVER goes online. Which makes it at best an ornament.....as much use as a chocolate teapot.

@greengeek has hit the nail on the head. You CAN over think the whole shebang until you're dizzy with the sheer number of possibilities that MIGHT happen....you could even become completely paranoid. About the best you can do is to minimize risks to the point where you, as an individual, feel comfortable.....or else you would never, EVER get anything done.

Mike.

Certainly, except we must never become complacent about government control mechanisms. Linux offers us all some hope as an OS we can trust so the problem to a large extent does become the browser and how effectively we can keep an eye on it and make its use as secure as possible. If things get really bad we would need to avoid all but simplest open-source browsers that avoid overly complex protocol mechanisms along with Wireshark-type constant monitoring. For now, maybe not or indeed we would get nothing done. Perhaps we should simply get back to reading books and I would say: communicating by letter, but ... most letter-based post systems are vanishing. The Internet as a mechanism is fragile but very much overly relied on and trusted nowadays.

[muggins]

I've been using Puppy as my only operating system, since 2004, and AFAIK I'm the only puppy user that's reported being hacked. And yes, it
was a browser exploit, where I tried to logon to my bank's website, and was warned that my CA certificates were wrong, Having
consumed a few beers I threw caution to the wind and went ahead. The next day I found that my account had been stung for
several hundred dollars.

It turned out it was all due to my computer's clock being wrong, as the clock was used to generate the certificates. Never had
any problems since and, luckily, the bank reimbursed me the hacked money.

[dimkr]

Browsers are insecure by their very nature. The totally secure browser simply doesn't exist; it's an oxymoron in real terms

Same with cars. Slow cars don't exist, they don't get you anywhere, and fast cars are dangerous cars. To use a car safely, you learn about possible dangers, train yourself to identify and avoid dangers, inspect the car regularly for risks, replace old components that may put you at risk, replace the entire car when it's so old it doesn't have replacement parts, and so on. You don't use your car with a 'I know it's risky but what can I do' attitude, or give up on using cars altogether.

[Jasper]

[libertas]

Applications can try to be secure, but if the underlying layers are not, the whole process is insecure.
Are firmwares secure? Most are corporate owned.
Are hardwares secure? Most are corporate owned.

It's not only chinese Android phones, it's everything.

What 'forces' have the power to make Intel and AMD introduce undocumented CPU instructions that allow someone aware to gain ring 0 root access to some system?

This is all a world of Masters and slaves, although many slaves consider themselves as being free because live in so called democracies.
It's said on schools and TVs all the time, so it is right... Or wrong...

Tip: Intel short name for...?

[newpet]

For whatever little my observations may be worth, I share most of the observations read above. But I also think that nothing compares to puppy and its unique capabilities and features. Even when we talk about security.
I recently tried a similar OS, in terms of weight and else, AntiX as liveusb. Neither the interface quality, nor the lightness, nor the agility of the system is comparable to PL. But what matters most, the mechanism that oversees the management of data saving is not reliable and rather prone to failure. Also, the entire OS does not work from a read-only usb device, whereas PL heroically does.
I have already been using puppies (from tahr on) for several years for banking without the slightest problem. As someone observed, no system is inherently secure. What matters most, however, is what we actually do with it.
Just harden your system a little with a solid firewall rule set, use a good and updated browser and configure it well (dns on https ecc.), disable unwanted services and daemons running in background as much you can, in order to reduce the attack surface, and maybe prefer a puppy flavour that has some update mechanism.
Also, a write protected flash drive can be a useful tool.
To top it off, do what you need to do in the shortest possible time, don't stay logged for too long. It must be like a spider's bite.

Happy home banking
(finger crossed...)

[wizard]

@newpet
@libertas

Some security tips here: viewtopic.php?t=14247

wizard

[mikeslr]

That's a terrible and slanderous thing to say:

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